Who is Sigyn?

by Galina Krasskova

Sigyn is mentioned a mere handful of times in the surviving lore.
References to Her may be found in the Voluspa,
the Lokasenna, the Gylfaginning, and the Skaldskaparmal and Þórsdrápa. What we actually learn from these references is
regrettably little:

Sigyn
is Loki’s wife.

She
is listed amongst the Asynjur, the Goddesses of the Aesir.

She
is the mother, by Loki, of Narvi and Vali. When Loki was bound in the cave as
punishment for His role in Baldur’s death, Vali was turned into a wolf. He then
killed His brother by tearing Him apart. Narvi’s intestines were used as part
of the binding securing Loki.

Sigyn,
ostensibly having witnessed all of this, stayed by Loki during His punishment,
holding a bowl over His face to catch the poison that dripped from a serpent
the Goddess Skadhi had secured above His head. For this reason, Loki is
sometimes referred to as the “Burden of Sigyn’s Arms.’

Sigyn’s
name means “victory woman”.

Nothing else survives that may point to the ways in which Her
nature and roles were conceived of by pre-Christian Heathens. Nothing survives
of Her worship. This may be viewed as a great loss, or it may be viewed as a
great opportunity for we have the chance to start anew, going directly to this
Goddess to learn how She wants to be honored today.

In my own experience of Sigyn, and that of the handful of Sigyn’s
people that I know, She seems to often reveal Herself in one of two ways: either
as a delightfully child-like young girl or, conversely, as a wife, implacable,
resilient, post the ordeal of the cave, burdened by the overwhelming grief of
the loss of Her children. Either way, Her presence is compelling and immense.
She is the only Goddess I have ever encountered who evokes in me a feeling of
protectiveness. Perhaps this is simply because when Loki first “introduced” me
to Her, it was in Her child aspect that She came. I have written about Her
before, both in Exploring the Northern Tradition
and Feeding the Flame, the latter
of which is a devotional to Loki and His family. It is not my desire to repeat
myself unduly here. Suffice it to say, that Sigyn is a complex Goddess with a
great deal to teach, and while She may very often choose to reveal Herself in
the ways noted above, one should not think that She is in any way limited to
those two roles. It is up to every devotee to discover Her for themselves, to
pave the road through devotion by which She can touch their hearts.

Taken from lore, Sigyn has one primary mystery: She endured. She
consciously chose to honor the commitments of Her heart and to endure in the
face of unprecedented loss, grief, and misery. Loki’s ordeal in the cave,
perhaps the defining moment of His mythos, was also Her ordeal in the cave. The difference is that She consciously
chose to endure it. Over the years, I have encountered many discussions in
various online Heathen and Asatru forums in which Sigyn was dismissed as little
more than the epitome of the abused wife. Moderns all too often seem to read
into Her story passivity, victim-hood, and a regrettable lack of agency. I
truly do not know whether this is because She demonstrated these arguably most
Heathen of virtues in defense of Loki, who is a very controversial figure in
the modern community, because we know nothing else of Her story via the lore,
or because She isn’t depicted as bold, brash, or sexually independent (like
Freya). I would hate to think that Her strength, Her loyalty, Her constancy are
all too often overlooked perhaps because these things are exercised primarily
in the enclosure of Her domestic sphere.

It seems to me as though Sigyn’s world was defined by love: love
of Her husband, love of Her children, love of Her family as a whole. Given that
Loki’s other wife is Angurboda, the mighty chieftainess of the Ironwood, are we
really to believe that He would choose a doormat as a mate? It makes far more
sense to me (and, granted, this comes in part from my personal experience of
Sigyn) to wonder at the quiet strength that must have provided a soothing haven
to this most quixotic and fiery of Gods. It is a mistake to view Her gentleness
as weakness. Because She is never seen external to Her home and family does not
mean that She is powerless. What it means is that She created inangard, the sacred enclosure of the
home, for a God who was otherwise rootless. She rooted Him, balanced Him,
accepted Him, and above all loved Him. It was Her choice to do this. Herein
lies the conundrum of modernity: when we accept that women have free agency, we
must also acknowledge that sometimes that agency will be exercised consciously
and freely in ways we might disagree with. I cannot help but speculate on
whether or not Sigyn is so easily dismissed because She was, essentially, the
quintessential Hausfrau, and this is
a role that in today’s world, is also all too often devalued.

Several years ago, a Christian friend, a priest, observing the
less than pleasant dynamic that so often characterizes Heathen community discussions
and debate turned to me and asked, apologetically, “Where is love in your
faith? Where is compassion?” At the time, I merely responded that it is in the
lessons the Gods teach us directly, not the lore, unless it be hidden within
the dictates on hospitality. As I myself have grown in my faith (hopefully) and
as I have grown closer to Sigyn (definitely), I’ve discovered the answer to my
friend’s question: Sigyn. Sigyn embodies and teaches everything we could ever
hope to learn about love, compassion and many other virtues as well. Where is
love in our religion? It rests with Sigyn. Where is compassion? In Her heart.
Perhaps by casting Her and by extension Her family out of our devotions, we’re
turning a blind eye to those things as well.

Sigyn’s story is also one of victory: victory over wrenching
circumstances, over pain, loss, despair, and anguish. She chooses to endure and
by doing so, She triumphs. As Fuensanta Arismendi, an ardent Sigyn’s woman once
said: Sigyn’s strength is in Her heart. Her heart is invincible.

Despite the fact that there is a dearth of information in the
lore on Sigyn, She has a small collection of sacred by names, or heiti. Known heiti for Her, taken both from lore and modern practice include:

Every time I hear the kenning for Loki “Burden of Sigyn’s
arms,” it brings to mind Michelangelo’s pietá, not the one in Rome
but the one in the Uffizi in Florence
which shows Mary, Joseph, and the Magdalene holding a Christ made doubly heavy
by the burden of a dead body and by the burden of grief. Here Michelangelo
caught something essential about the nature of grief: it has a terrible weight.
Shakespeare said in King John, where he has a queen sit down on the floor next
to the throne having lost a son, “…for my grief is so great that none but the
huge firm earth can bear it.” That to me, is Sigyn. She bears the unbearable.
There’s no glamour in Her ordeal.

With ordeals like Odin’s, it’s nine days and then it’s
over. It’s the plucking of an eye and then it’s over. I mean no disrespect, but
Sigyn didn’t know when or even if Her ordeal would ever be over. Not to mention
no mother ever gets over the ordeal of losing a child, something Odin also
understood. But there is no glamour: you
do what’s right, and you do it again and again and again, and that’s very
unpopular. There’s no glamour, no sweeping gestures, and no one to sing your
praises. The heart is a terrible thing.

-Fuensanta
Arismendi

Finally, as both a
Goddess and a woman, Sigyn has immense dignity. This is something that is
rarely touched upon even by those who honor Her regularly: She has an enormous
amount of dignity. She never complains. She never explains. She never blames.
She never shows off or emphasizes the pain and difficulty of what She does. She
never seeks attention. She just does what needs to be done and allows Her deeds
to speak for themselves. There is something remarkably noble in Her attitude.
She simply does not stoop to complain. There’s tremendous dignity in that.

Of all the Nine Worlds, Helheim was unjustly the richer
because it held Her son. -
Fuensanta Arismendi

footnote

[1]
This is a particularly
fascinating by-name in what it implies: that She has the ability to bind and
ward off magical incantations. Among possible interpretations, this could be
seen in Her act of warding Loki from the magical binding and torture inflicted
on Him by the Aesir, or it could be a reference to Her ability to make sacred
the holy inangard of the home. As Loki’s devotee Mordant Carnival noted,

Then
there's that tantalizing kenning for Sigyn: "galdrs hapt" or "Incantation-fetter" (according to
Faulkes' translation of the Þórsdrápa,
where we find the Loki-kenning "farmr
arma galdrs hapts." Some have
suggested that "galdrs hapts"
refers to Gullveig, but since Loki is nowhere else kenned as Gullveig's lover
Sigyn is the more rational choice).

Why
is She being referred to as Incantation-Fetter? This, to me, implies some story
that hasn't come down to us, perhaps one in which Sigyn displays the ability to
thwart magical charms. (I can't help thinking of the Runatál section of Hávamál,
which makes reference to charms both for binding one's enemies and for freeing
oneself from fetters.)

As a side note, the name Narvi crops up elsewhere in
lore. It's given as the name of a Jotun, the father of Nótt (Night). It is
unclear whether They’re the same individual; perhaps there were two Narvis? If
they were, though, that would make Sigyn the grandmother of Night, a very
potent role.”